So far, it looks like only Kobalt hand tools are being sold at the Amazon storefront. But all of those listings, from what I can tell, are for current products (as opposed to clearanced or liquidated models).

A few months ago there were reports that Craftsman tools were superseding Kobalt tools at Lowes. I wrote about why I didn’t think this was really happening. Since then, there have been more reports of Craftsman tools taking the place of Kobalt tools at Lowes stores, but I still haven’t seen this happening at my local Lowes stores. That could mean that it’s happening, but just not here, at least not yet.

Kobalt Tools is a Lowes private label, or house brand, meaning it’s a Lowes-exclusive brand of hand tools, power tools, tool storage, and other tool-related products. You typically don’t see private label brands sold outside of their exclusive retailers, except by special arrangement, such as how Craftsman tools were sold at Ace Hardware even before Sears sold the brand to Stanley Black & Decker, and by third party sellers.

This is very unusual, and I’m not sure what it means. I had emailed our Lowes and Kobalt contact asking about this, but have not heard back.

36 Comments

All i know. If i was buying one or the other. Id buy the Craftsman. I sort of get the feeling Sears as bad as were in Canada at the end. Maybe is worse in USA. Seems there is some CMan hate on here now and again. For me though. We have only had Lowes for a few years.

Where as legacy Craftsman products are everywhere. Loved by millions .

I think just on name recogniti9n it is a prudent move to ditch Kobalt. However profit is likely high on Kobalt. So maybe that is where Amazon comes in. Drive those profits a bit higher. Pass the buck to the postal service.

Having just exchanged a broken sears purchased craftsman ratchet at my local ace hardware with no hassle, I’d pick craftsman too over kobalt if limited to those two brands. But since that was the second time I’ve had to replace that particular ratchet (1/4”), i’d go with another better brand if I were starting all over.

I’ve always been dissatisfied with Lowes’ website search functionality. Maybe this is a strategy to get Kobalt in front of more consumers with a more easily navigable website, especially during the holidays? It’s a long shot speculation though.

I haven’t recently, I’ll have to give it another shot. I just got sick of searching for things I knew should turn up dozens of relevant results, only to get redirected to an entirely different product page.

Craftsman in Kobalt out. “lifetime hassle free guarantee” as long as we market them. This was a disingenuous statement made by Lowes from day one, churn product, drop tools, sorry no replacement. (Unless you make them give you a similar one you must ask loudly) Website simply a marker on the internet, see store idiots for replacement of a no longer existing tool. (Danger Will Robinson) Good luck. Craftsman, and Kobalt, Husky, etc. ad nauseum all ephemeral names that can float from product to product. Welcome to our world of branding…

I think they’ll be more clearly delineated. I think we’ll see Kobalt phased out, or at least significantly downsized for hand tools. I’ve also noticed that entry level Kobalt tools are disappearing at my Lowes while their 24v Max line has been pretty well received and seems to pack a lot for the dollar.

I think Craftsman takes over for Kobalt hand tools and entry-level power stuff, and Kobalt moves upmarket towards the “prosumer” to compete with DeWalt and Makita, maybe at a slight discount compared to those name brands.

In a similar vein, I really don’t understand the need for Lowes to maintain both Kobalt and Craftsman product lines. They’re direct competitors in my mind – and Craftsman clearly the more recognizable brand name.

Kobalt might have some some products that Craftsman doesn’t, but are a few niche products sufficient for Lowes to carry a complete second portfolio of tools? That might justify keeping a few Kobalt products on the shelf (if those niche pieces sell enough) and only marketing the rest through the website with a ship-to-store option.

I’m Canadian. Lowes and Kobalt are newer entries to the market here, so maybe my perception is skewed by that. However, I’ve always thought of Kobalt to be the Lowes version of Husky – only Husky is pretty consistently lower priced and has the same warranty. In that context, I’ve never be enthralled by a Kobalt and only bought the tools if I found them on sale or clearance.

My frustration with Kobalt has always been that they don’t maintain the same product for a long period of time, they don’t stock accessories for lots of their products in store, and they don’t stock accessories for legacy products at all. The benefit of an in house brand should be that everything you need for it is available in house.

The Kobalt 24V tools do look nice though, and it seems like from the Lowe’s website they’ve killed off all their 18v stuff. Pricewise, the 24V tools seem to slot in above Craftsman, and slightly below Makita, Milwaukee, DeWalt, etc.

Craftsman has typically made a very good homeowner power tool, but I’ve never thought of them as super heavy duty or high end. They’re kind of above Ryobi and at or just below Ridgid quality in my experience. Their hand tools were always excellent, and the warranty process was very good on them. What I’ve seen so far seems to have Craftsman as a direct replacement for Porter Cable’s stuff, which seems appropriate.

Pure speculation on my part, but there are a few potential reasons for this.

Unless Lowes has quietly sold the Kobalt name, which I have not seen anywhere, the Kobalt brand is still a Lowes property. kobalttools.com is an active website that was registered by Lowes.

The Lowes deal with SBD to become the exclusive home center distributor of Craftsman must have appealed to Lowes on a business analysis. Some believed their house brand lagged behind those of their competitors. Who knows what concessions they made to SBD to get the deal, but the speculation that Craftsman would replace Kobalt on floor as a de facto house brand seems to have been correct. Assuming that is correct, what does Lowes do with Kobalt? On one level keeping it around in some capacity is a hedge against losing Craftsman down the road (or creates some bargaining leverage vis-à-vis SBD). By keeping Kobalt alive in some capacity, Lowes can more quickly reintroduce their house brand to the floor if the need arises.

Alternatively, who knows what long term supply contracts Lowes has with various manufacturers of Kobalt? It may cost them more to break those contracts than to honor them and attempt to distribute Kobalt through e-channels.

his could be a way for Lowes to hedge their bet on the SBD/Craftsman partnership.

I would buy more tools if i was invested into kobalt and had the ease of access to order replacement or additional tools via amazon. Sure i could order them off lowes.com but i’d rather just use 2-click on amazon and not have to pull out my CC and type it all into lowes.com
BUT that said i am invested into husky- not kobalt

Kobalt has some tools that are not available in craftsman. For example, I really want a long handled ratchet that I saw in kobalt (item 337328, model 8587) but I’m a craftsman person, and no such ratchet exists in the craftsman brand.

Damn, could of at least given me a shout out on this :P.! If you are feeling guilty feel free to send my freebies :). I did find it interesting though since it is a Lowes brand.

After looking at a few of the top seller listing I would venture to guess they are in the early stages of building out their Amazon presence. The individual product listing are not “enhanced pages”..Here is a random Samsung enhanced listing.. https://www.amazon.com/Samsung-Electronics-SM-T830NZKAXAR-Galaxy-Black/dp/B07FNZHWH2 If you notice how much robust the “from the manufacturer” section is. I would venture to bet they will be putting more energy into this as time goes.

I quite literally make my living managing a few amazon store fronts. The reality is I foresee a future to where manufacturers put more energy into Amazon store fronts than they do traditional websites. Most consumers first or second stop is amazon for pretty much anything. They are the go to for many people and defacto all in one web-store. The companies that can figure out how to sell on amazon and make money doing it are putting themselves at a huge competitive advantage. I have seen market research where the younger generation will now check Amazon first for products followed by google than the manufacturer website as a distant third.

The margins are tighter but if you can be smart about what you store at Amazon(FBA) and what you fulfill yourself(FBM) the volume can more than makeup for it.

I was worried that this might cause you trouble in some way, so I thought to keep the tip anonymous.

Email me (via contact form or direct if I’ve emailed you directly before) your shipping info, and maybe a few words about the kinds of EDC gear you use every day, and I’ll see what I can do. A word of warning – if I’m able to send anything, it’ll likely be completely random.

The commentary on Amazon and the perception that as it grows ever larger it is also becoming more error prone and the third party seller issue has been wide on this website and others.

Some of the specialist tool retailers use Amazon as another outlet usually with a substantial uplift on their direct prices presumably to cover what they have to pay Amazon and it is just a method of making incremental sales.

I am not sure why this is considered a good idea from the purchasers point of view given that it just trades on people’s laziness (similar to touch for payments so they do not have to remember four digits)

BTW, Craftsman tools were also sold at Orchard, although probably not before it was part of Sears….on the good side, I have a couple compact sets of Craftsman sockets I bought at Orchard that are old enough to be Made in USA, along with a Made in Germany Craftsman ratcheting screw driver.

Our Sears store has a “closing” sign out, and I was driving by so stopped in. Amazingly, they had one each size of the Craftsman-branded version of the Armor-tool pf dog fence, at 20% off, this is just what I was looking for, but figured I’d never find in a million years. This is a fairly specialized woodworking item, one you would be unlikely to find anywhere other than Woodcraft, Rockler, etc.

While I was there, I remembered what I used to like about Sears’ tool section. There really was a lot of variety. Some of it excellent stuff, like knipex. Unlike the big box stores or anything else that I can think of. I felt nostalgia for what used to be. Very likely, it is that same nostalgia that will create a demand for the new Craftsman tool.

I was in Lowe’s recently and was nearly blinded by all the bright red everywhere. Pretty much in-your-face Craftsman red making Bosch, Hitachi and Kobalt disappear into the background. I did open and close a couple of their tape measures and wasn’t impressed, seemed flimsy. The storage boxes look nice, though. Not likely I’ll ever buy their power tools, though I have bought some Kobalt 24-v and think they’re excellent value for the money. Hope they keep the line up.

I am surprised more tool companies don’t deal direct to the public. A good example is Hilti. No middle man, they reap all the profits and warranty is direct and fast. More profit should equal better service.

I am not suggesting it’s how it should be as it would cut out retail stores and a lot of people would lose jobs. But from a tool manufacturers perspective it must be tempting.

Hilti is the ultimate example of the”people who need to know who we are and what we do, know who we are” private club type retailer. Being based in Liechteinstein would reinforce that germanic (little g because they are not Germans) attitude which I really like in many ways. Their tools are superb and item for item I would say are better than Festool although Festool has the wider range.

My affection is reinforced by the fact that fifty years ago the first nail gun I saw was a Hilti which used cartridges to fire nails instead of bullets and technically in the UK required a firearms licence if you fitted the extension piece. It really was a nail gun unlike the gas and electric powered tools which are called that today.

I always thought they were not covered on Toolguyd because their price means they do not make sense for anyone other than the very top earning everyday users and would therefore be of minimal interest to people reading this website.

Together with a lot of the new and very clever tools being released by WIHA at the moment, their tools are one of the reasons that some days I want to be a fully focused everyday user.

The question as to why more tool companies do not sell directly particularly since the advent of the internet is the restrictions they have because of the distribution and supply agreements in place with retailers, higher end tools generally are not volume driven however even these are restricted at some level e.g. Festool does not supply to discounters (allegedly).

Hilti is an excellent example of a manufacturer who is not volume driven and wants to control its products end to end however it is a very strong company that can resist the (false) lure of sales for the sake of sales.

Ten years ago I was invited to the opening of one of their offices in London, it was great fun, we got to play with lots of their new releases, they gave us little model Hilti trucks and then the conversation turned to tools and particularly volume discounts which was short on the grounds there are none.

It takes a lot of confidence in your product and your philosophy to turn away business because you believe that your product is correctly priced, there were comments made that certain other producers overpriced products (based on the level of engineering required to produce their product) so they could be sold at substantial “discounts” not the Hilti way.

It also takes more people and resources to sell direct. I’ve ordered direct from manufacturers before, and in lots of cases it would have been easier to go through a retailer or dealer. But sometimes availability or pricing leads me to buy direct.

It takes more people and resources to sell direct does not scan, particularly with internet access being so widespread.

Yes there will be additional employees within the producer but no external employees and almost by definition the direct employees will have better product knowledge the supplier will also benefit from direct customer feedback.

The direct sales model does not work for volume focused box shifter type producer whose margins are always under pressure.

However if I was a high end manufacturer I would have little interest in putting my product in the hands of untrained (not their fault most retailers do not invest in their staff product knowledge) shop staff or internet sellers who are selling tools today and widgets tomorrow which means either specialist tool retailers or direct sales. Some of the larger Festool retailers are beginning to resemble BMW dealerships in their presentation.

Do not take this the wrong way but direct ordering was the normal channel when I was young and you had to know what you wanted there was no appetite for amateurs, technical questions yes beginner questions no, there were a couple of suppliers where I was convinced this was based to sort the wheat from the chaff.

This does not apply where you are talking to a firm which generally sells its products through other channels and you wind up talking to someone who is just trying to help.

“Serious” has different definitions depending on the company. Some companies will answer technical questions and sell (1) piece of equipment. Others won’t talk to you if you’re not an institution ready to spend tens of thousands of dollars.

I can understand that. It’s just frustrating.

I went with a friend to an electronics store once. He had money-in-hand, and they didn’t want to bother with us. I went to another a couple of years later, and the tech put the cameras I asked about in front of me, but also didn’t stick around to chit-chat.

At Woodworking Shows, I’ve been ignored, presumably based on my younger age.

Since the effort to sell (1) unit can be just as much as to sell (50), a lot of manufacturers just don’t want to bother.

For others, it does conflict with their supply agreements. There’s one European tool brand that undercuts their distributors from time to time, and it always strikes me as odd.

European Union competition rules can mean odd outcomes, while in general it is perceived as a good thing that producers are not allowed to discriminate on who they supply (they are not allowec to say discounters not welcome) it does lead to producers from time to time having to “prove” that there is no monopoly pricing so undercutting distributors could form part of that strategy. This is not a theoretical problem one high end European tool producer was fined EUR 8 million for perceived breaches of the rules. Direct sales allow companies to avoid this.

There are advantages to being an old git and also having a deep knowledge of the business when talking to producers generally once you get past the nine to five front liners this is usually achieved by asking the difficult questions.

A few years ago we needed to buy some shipping containers I wound up talking to the managing director of the largest importer, strangely they are imported, who after getting over his surprise that I had been put through to him on the grounds his firm usually dealt with the people who sold to the people who sold to people like me looking for a dozen or so containers not only answered my questions but then asked if we would be interested in helping them out as they often received requests to fit out containers for use as stores and offices, I put him in touch with a firm we knew well and as far as I know they are still working together.